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The lightweight 16-in/50 Mark 7 was designed to resolve this conflict. These guns were 50 calibers long, 50 times their 16-inch (406 mm) bore diameter with barrels 66.7 ft (20.3 m) long, from chamber to muzzle. Each gun weighed about 239,000 lb (108 t) without the breech, and 267,900 lb (121.5 t) with the breech. [1]
A cutaway of a 16-inch gun turret aboard an Iowa-class battleship. A month after the InSurv, Iowa failed an Operation Propulsion Program Evaluation. A short time later, the ship retook and passed the evaluation. [6] In July 1987, Captain Larry Seaquist assumed command of the ship. [7]
The secondary battery of 5-inch (127 mm) guns could hit targets nearly 9 statute miles (14 km) away with solid projectiles or proximity fuzed shells, and was effective in an anti-aircraft role as well. Each of the four battleships carried a wide array of 20 mm and 40 mm anti-aircraft guns for defense against enemy aircraft.
USS Iowa (BB-61) fires a full broadside volley during a target exercise near Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, 1 July 1984, showing the muzzle blast from its 16 inch main battery and the pressure effect on the water surface surrounding the ship. A muzzle blast is an explosive shockwave created at the muzzle of a firearm during shooting.
Their intended armament would have been twelve 16-inch (406 mm) Mark 7 guns in four 3-gun turrets, up from the nine Mark 7 guns in three turrets used by the Iowa class. Unlike the three preceding classes of battleships, the Montana class was designed without any restrictions from treaty limitations.
The U.S. Navy had the 16"/50-caliber Mark 2 guns left over from the canceled Lexington-class battlecruisers and South Dakota-class battleships of the early 1920s. However it was already apparent that the Mark 2 was too heavy to arm the North Carolina and new South Dakota (1939) battleship classes which had to adhere to the 35,000 ton standard displacement set by the Second London Naval Treaty.
The 16-inch gun was a built-up gun constructed in a length of 45 calibers. The Mark 1 had an A tube, jacket, liner, and seven hoops , four locking rings and a screw-box liner. When the gun was designed in August 1913 it was referred to as the "Type Gun (45 Cal.)" as an effort to conceal the gun's true size of 16 inches.
USS Iowa (BB-61) is a retired battleship, the lead ship of her class, and the fourth in the United States Navy to be named after the state of Iowa.Owing to the cancellation of the Montana-class battleships, Iowa is the last lead ship of any class of United States battleships and was the only ship of her class to serve in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II.